As time goes by: Spanish Civil War vets

By Mireya Castaneda, Granma International, 20
December 2001

IN 1938, Dolores Ibarruri, La Pasionaria, said farewell to the
International Brigades that fought alongside the Republicans in
Spain. As time goes by and the wounds of war are staunched, we will
tell our children of the Brigades. We will tell how these people left
everything to come here, telling us, ‘We are here because
Spain's cause is ours.’

And that is what happened. Today, 65 years after that fight against
fascism, this was confirmed to Granma International by a frail,
white-haired 86-year-old man who did not want to miss the opportunity
of participating in the conference entitled One Hundred Years of
Pablo. The event will allow us to understand better a man of his
times, who fought for his ideals and on the same battlefield - Pablo
de la Torriente Brau.

Moe Fishman, general secretary of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Veterans' Association, was happy to accept the invitation from Vmctor
Casaus, the Pablo de la Torriente Brau Center's director. Fishman
arrived with a documentary filmmaker to record the meeting and, as he
explained, to make a short film to show to a wide section of the U.S.
public.

Above all, he recalled that 3,000 U.S. citizens fought voluntarily in
the Spanish Civil War (1936-39)p; 900 died and the survivors founded
their association in 1939.

Our program was simple, to help each other, because we received
nothing from the government. It viewed us with suspicion. It even
wanted to prevent our participation. They passed a law stating that we
would lose our citizenship if we went. But 3,000 left despite that
threat.

Fishman, a good conversationalist, was only 21 when he volunteered.
Lack of money had made him forget his dreams of university studies.
I had to look for work. My parents had a laundry, so I knew the
trade and worked in a large factory. I was a Young Communist League
member, and in 1935 I organized a trade union in the factory. The next
year I left for Spain.

Joining the Brigades was something natural for Fishman. I was part
of the revolutionary movement and already knew of fascism and its
dangers since 1932, when Hitler lost the elections in Germany, and
then Hindenburg appointed him chancellor. Naturally I knew about Mein
Kampf and his racist policies against the Jews and what he was
thinking of doing.

He pointed out that, unfortunately, nowadays many people think that
racism was fascism's only evil, forgetting that it was an attack on
every single person's democratic rights, especially those of the
working class. He pointed out that this is still the case in all
countries where fascists are in power.

I went to Spain because I had the chance to do something against
this.

Fishman was a member of the Washington Battalion, the second to be
formed with U.S. participation, but this was decimated and then
integrated into the Lincoln Brigade. I joined the fighting at the
battle of Brunete; our objective was to take the pressure off Madrid.
I was wounded on July 5, 1937, and could not fight again, my leg never
recovered [the consequences are still visible today] and I was sent
home in 1938.

All the International Brigades left Spain in September 1938. We
were disenchanted, from the point of view that we wanted to beat the
fascists, but we also felt happy because of the way the Spanish people
bade us farewell, with love because we had gone to offer help when
they were desperately fighting for the Republic.

On their return to the United States, the veterans formed an
association and have had a wonderful history of struggle. In the
McCarthy era, the central struggle was defending the U.S. people's
democratic rights, and the association played an important part in the
civil rights movement. (The Lincoln Brigade was the first fully
integrated military organization in U.S. history, with black officers
and sergeants, something that didn't happen in the U.S. Army until
1948.) They also demonstrated against the war in Viet Nam.

Fishman says that they have now reached a difficult moment. All the
association's members still have not been able to meet together, but
11 of them went to Spain for the International Brigade's 65th
anniversary and they were asked for a declaration, which they issued.

The text recognizes the pain of the September 11 attack victims,
affirming that they are not in agreement with those attacks, because
terrorism is not a political movement and will not solve political
problems. Their declaration states that the terrorists responsible
should be tried in an international court and not in U.S. military
courts, as Bush has proposed.

But there's more. The veterans are very worried by the way in which
the Bush administration is attacking civil liberties in the United
States and we believe that many of these actions are
unconstitutional. This is why we are encouraging progressive forces to
fight those arbitrary measures.

The veterans also oppose the war against Afghanistan, taking part in
peace demonstrations in New York and other cities, although these
have been small, because war fervor still runs high, but this will
pass and Bush will make more mistakes and the U.S. public will
understand that the road to war will not solve the crucial problem of
ending terrorism.

Returning to the more historic theme of Pablo de la Torriente Brau's
centennial, Moe Fishman recalled that he did not know any of the Cuban
fighters in Spain personally. In reality, as the Cubans spoke
Spanish they automatically mixed more with the Spanish. The Republican
Army badly needed officers. The Cubans distinguished themselves
well.

Now he says he is happy at being able to come to Cuba. It's a
marvelous example of international solidarity that we have been
invited to take part in the Pablo de la Torriente Brau centenary
celebration. He asked that the conversation be a short one,
because he didn't want to miss the speeches, in case he wants to
write a book later.

As well as attending the conference, Fishman will meet with Cuban
veterans of the Spanish Civil War and inaugurate the exhibition The
Spirit Lives, consisting of 35 photos by anonymous photographers and
10 by Sam Walker, [sic; see below] who fought in the Lincoln Brigade.
The work has been sent by New York's Puffin Gallery.

The spirit lives, as La Pasionaria has already observed. As time goes
by...

soruce - Bill Koehnlein <toplab@toplab.org
December 21, 2001

To the Editor, Granma International:

Thanks so much for your article, As Time Goes By, in the
December 20 issue of Granma Internacional (English edition).

I would like to alert you to a mistake. At the end of the article you
mention Sam Walker, a Lincoln Brigade vet and photographer
whose pictures are in The Spirit Lives exhibition.

The man you are referring to is Sam Walters.

Sam indeed did fight in Spain, and he remained true to the cause until
his dying days. Sam was a lifelong communist and an ardent supporter
of the Cuban Revolution, and even when he was well over 80 years old
he showed up at meetings and demonstrations for social justice all
over New York. Sam was a fighter, and never wavered in the struggle.

When he became ill in 1999 his wish was to visit Cuba one last time
(he had made several trips to the island during the course of the
Revolution), and in November he and his long-time companera, Tibby
Brooks, arrived in Havana, where Sam received--as Tibby described
it--the best medical care possible.

Sam died in Havana on December 5, 1999 and is now in the Cristobal
Colon cemetary in Havana.

Granma Internacional readers might be interested in knowing that Sam's
Spanish Civil War photographs had been severely damaged over time and
that they were lovingly restored by New York photographer Diane Greene
Lent and later exhibited at the Brecht Forum in New York. These
photographs then moved to the Puffin Foundation and are now in its
permanent collection.